Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[DGuller]

I care.  AR is one of the few posters willing to break the groupthink in this thread.  I often don't agree with his conclusions, but I definitely think that a lot of what we know and think about Covid response needs to be challenged and critically examined in a way that it currently is not.

[Tamas]

It's nice of you to care.

[celedhring]

I care.  AR is one of the few posters willing to break the groupthink in this thread.  I often don't agree with his conclusions, but I definitely think that a lot of what we know and think about Covid response needs to be challenged and critically examined in a way that it currently is not.

Oh, I agree that Covid response needs to be challenged and critically examined too. I just think AR is on the wrong side of the fence.

[Sheilbh]

With daily press conferences ending after today and pubs plus other places opening up in less than two weeks, I think the pandemic is officially over, mission accomplished!

Yeah. I've not followed the actual details of what's opening - I need to look it up. But I mean we're now back to below average mortality, there is a test and trace system now. I've not watched the press conference for weeks because there's not much that's relevant coming out of it any more. Isn't this to point to stop the press conference, start lifting restrictions and try and move to test and trace plus local lockdowns if necessary (because of local outbreaks)?

If not, what's the metric where we do change?

[Tamas]

Yeah fair enough. I think it just comes down to my total lack of trust in this government.

[alfred russel]

Can we get a summary of the respective points?  Is the argument being made by AR that New York got hit a lot worse than Florida, so people really shouldn't be putting down Florida's response and exalting New York response?  And is the argument made by Minsky that given the luck of the draw both states started with, New York mitigated more suffering than Florida?  I'm kind of getting lost in the weeds here.

I think the argument got diverted into the weeds.

My larger point was that Florida has done relatively well despite a theoretically poor government response.

One of the data points I used to show that was how much worse NY is than Florida. MM said that NY was terrible because of a late response. That has started a sub discussion of whether NY's response was later than Florida's.

[Savonarola]

Orlando has been the new hot spot in Florida.  Most of the new cases are people under 40; so experts think it's because the bars have re-opened.  It's now mandatory to wear a mask when in public in Orange county ( ), but there's no penalty for not wearing one... unless the neighborhood watch steps in. (Okay that was Seminole county, not Orange.)

...and, of course, we had anti-mask demonstrations in Orlando and a lawsuit filed against against the executive order.  FREEDOM!

[Sheilbh]

So this is really interesting and not very positive news - I mean it feels like immunising others will be helpful, but feels like the elderly may still be more vulnerable even with a vaccine:

Covid-19 vaccine may not work for at-risk older people, say scientists
Lords committee told children may have to be immunised to protect their grandparents
Sarah Boseley Health editor
Tue 23 Jun 2020 15.14 BST
Last modified on Tue 23 Jun 2020 15.39 BST

A vaccine against Covid-19 may not work well in older people who are most at risk of becoming seriously ill and dying from the disease, say scientists, which may mean immunising others around them, such as children.

Prof Peter Openshaw, from Imperial, one of the members of the UK's Sage scientific advisory sub-group Nervtag, told the House of Lords science and technology committee it was this week considering a paper on targeting different groups in the population with vaccines.

"Sometimes it is possible to protect a vulnerable group by targeting another group and this, for example, is being done with influenza," he said. "In the past few years, the UK has been at the forefront of rolling out the live attenuated vaccine for children."

Giving the nasal spray flu vaccine to children who do not often get severe flu protects their grandparents, he said. Immunising health and care workers – who are likely to be the first to get the vaccine – would also help protect older people who have the most contact with them.

Arne Akbar, professor of immunology at UCL and president of the British Society of Immunology, said scientists needed to work out what goes wrong with the immune system as people get older.

"One thing that's apparent, even in healthy older people, is that there's more inflammation all around the body. We need to understand where that inflammation is coming from," he said. "And this baseline inflammation in older people is linked to frailty and many negative outcomes as we get older. And this seems to be exacerbated when you get a severe infection like Covid-19.

"But what is the source of the inflammation in the first place? That's something that we really need to get to grips with."

Akbar said something else might be needed alongside the vaccine for older people, such as the steroid drug dexamethasone, which can block the inflammation caused by the virus and has been shown to save lives in Covid-19.

"So for older people, you might have something like an anti-inflammatory drug, like maybe dexamethasone, together with vaccine responses to give you the maximum benefit.

"Just the vaccine alone will help the younger people and that will be good, because then if the younger people are not infected they won't spread it to the older people. But it won't directly help the older group very much, and they're the people that are having the most severe disease right now."

The committee took evidence as Oxford University announced successful trials of two doses of its candidate vaccine in pigs, which respond in a similar way to humans. The Pirbright Institute, working with the vaccine scientists, established that two doses resulted in a significantly increased antibody response over one dose.

"It is not yet known what level of immune response will be required to protect humans against Sars-CoV-2. Vaccine efficacy trials are under way in humans, and if the efficacy result is lower than hoped for after a single dose, it is important to know if giving two doses could result in a greater immune response, which could then be more protective," said a statement.

Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford University, who is heading its Covid-19 vaccine research, told the Lords committee that none of the 140 vaccines in development was likely to be perfect, but said a useful vaccine did not have to be 100% effective.

"Even with 50% accuracy, we could actually go a long way to protecting the population. So we're optimistic that we will have something, and, if necessary, we can combine the vaccines to get something that works even better," she said.

As the numbers of people infected with coronavirus fall in England and the rest of the UK, it becomes more difficult to trial vaccines there, so she and colleagues have embarked on a trial in Brazil, where the numbers are high, and are about to start in South Africa as well. Astra Zeneca, to whom the vaccine is licensed, is setting up a trial of 30,000 people in the US, she said.

The first sign that any vaccine is working will help the researchers around the world, she said.

"As soon as we get a signal of efficacy and can compare that to the level of immunity that we're generating, that gives all vaccine developers really helpful information, to let them know whether their vaccines are likely to work as well and whether it will be one dose or two doses, and in older people and in younger people. So the first efficacy signal is going to be really important and as yet we don't know which country will be generating that."

[Tamas]

I like that the new distancing rule in England is "1 meter plus". The entire government is in that line how they couldn't just say "1 meter".

[Sheilbh]

I like that the new distancing rule in England is "1 meter plus". The entire government is in that line how they couldn't just say "1 meter".

I do not understand why we're having such an arcane, scholastic debate about this that's somehow gone on for weeks.

Also the approach of the different nations who are all saying they're sticking with 2m. My prediction is after making a great deal of hay about how risky the English government has been on this, they'll also adopt 1m or 1.5m or whatever in about a month's time. Just like the Scottish government saying no-one understands the English slogan of "stay alert" because it's so vague before, a month later, announcing their slogan: "stay safe"

I see all this political point-scoring over what seem like quite small points and feel re-assured. Nature is healing.

[Zanza]

Germany enacted a new lockdown in one of its districts affecting 360.000 persons. It's all because of one meatpacking plant with more than 1500 cases. Only 24 cases in the general population right now. Additional police forces deployed to enforce quarantine and army helping out local health authorities with testing infrastructure. They deploy teams that conduct mass testing now. All the lockdown measures are back: meetings only with two persons, schools and shops closed again etc. I hope the billionaire owner of the meatpacking plant has to pay for all of that.

[Josephus]

With daily press conferences ending after today and pubs plus other places opening up in less than two weeks, I think the pandemic is officially over, mission accomplished!

it sure feels that way.

[celedhring]

Loving the Germany-Spain themed facemask for the summit between our FA ministers 



Why are the ministers themselves not wearing one though? 

[The Minsky Moment]

My larger point was that Florida has done relatively well despite a theoretically poor government response.

And my question is how one defines "well".  The data from the couple weeks doesn't look very good. There is an implicit assumption that the spike in case numbers will either recede or remain mostly confined to a younger demographic.  Way too early to tell.

MM said that NY was terrible because of a late response.

Not exactly.  My point is that the response seems to have had a big effect on reducing cases and fatalities and it is reasonable to believe that an earlier response could have been effective.

There are other obvious differences between New York City and Florida and for that matter, between New York City and just about everywhere else in America such that it doesn't make much sense to start drawing conclusions as if those differences don't exist.

[alfred russel]

And my question is how one defines "well".  The data from the couple weeks doesn't look very good. There is an implicit assumption that the spike in case numbers will either recede or remain mostly confined to a younger demographic.  Way too early to tell.

Better than the US average in terms of deaths / capita.